#16 - TRICK 'R 'TREAT - Horror Countdown to Halloween

#16 – TRICK ‘R TREAT (2007)

Dir. Michael Dougherty

Another film I consider a “new classic” is the 2007 Michael Dougherty film Trick ‘r Treat. It’s a great film about four stories that that all take place in the same town on the same night…Halloween. We open on a couple who are just arriving home after a Halloween party. The wife wants to clean up the Halloween decorations while the husband wants to go inside and make love; sweet, sweet love. Part of his case that they save the clean up until the morning is it’s tradition not to blow out the candle in the jack-o’-lantern on Halloween.  Against his wishes she blows it out and is murdered in her front yard while her husband waits inside. 

The next sequence, and one of my favorites of the film, depicts a young kid stealing candy from the town principal’s front yard. As any good principal would do, he sits him down, lectures him about stealing, gives him poisoned candy, and then murders him. From there we cut to a rock quarry with a group of kids telling a story of a school bus from 30 years prior full of special needs children who met their death at the hands of a school bus driver at that very same rock quarry. Those same kids end up haunting the quarry and attack on Halloween.

Following the horrific school bus massacre we follow four highly attractive females who are buying last minute sexy Halloween costumes for a surprise party. They attract some local men to bring to the party and make their way to the forest where the party is taking place. One of the girls is attacked by the principal from the first story and she ends up taking him to the surprise party. The surprise of the party was that the girls are werewolves and that the main girl is there to kill her first person as a werewolf.

 

Our final story follows an old recluse man who hates Halloween. He finds some joy in scaring away trick-or-treaters. Other than that he spends his Halloweens watching TV and eating candy. The old man ends up getting stalked by one of the children from the school bus massacre. The kid, Sam, is in an orange suit with a big head wrapped in a burlap sack. The two have a fight that goes all throughout the man’s house and we eventually learn that he is the driver of the bus from the school bus massacre that occurred 30 years ago.

 

As you can see Trick ‘r Treat has a ton of stuff going on. However, it’s incredibly well written and done in such a way that each of the stories intermingles with the other seamlessly and without losing its structure. One of the things that makes this story stand out is the cast. The killer principal is played by Dylan Baker. Baker is incredible at playing someone who looks both friendly and inviting, yet creep and murderous at the same time. We also get a great performance by Anna Paquin and Brian Cox. The best thing about this film and the thing that probably got this film onto the list is Sam. Sam is represented in pretty much every story throughout the film and his costume design is super creepy. The burlap sack, while creepy in its own right, is blown apart at the hands of the bus driver which reveals an even creepier half pumpkin half skull. Sam seems invincible and even when his hand is cut off it crawls on and continues to fight!    

This film is worth owning and one that I try to revisit every Halloween. If you haven’t seen it, I probably spoiled it quite a bit, but you should still check it out.

                                                                                                                -Brett O. Walker